Thursday, September 15, 2005

Indian Cricket Team in a Flux

The last few days have seen some really dynamic activity happening in the Indian cricket team - mostly off-field than on. This very team, which epitomised unity and cohesion during the World Cup / Australian and Pakistan tour days seems to show signs of disintegration. For example:

A disciplinary committee has been set up to investigate the claim that some players within in the team mis-behaved during the recent one-day tournament.

An anti-corruption unit is investigating claims which said that the recent one-day tournament might have had some matches fixed and the anti-corruption unit also suggested that one swash-buckling Indian batsmen and 2 Indian fast bowlers might have been involved (no names were revealed).

Yuvraj Singh is picked ahead of Md. Kaif for the First test when current form clearly shows that Kaif should have made it into the team. Dada's explanation was that Yuvraj had played well in the past in the Test matches - hmmm, what does that mean ?

After scoring a fantastic hundred, Laxman shot out against his critics. That is fine considering that he was under enormous pressure. But he also said that there were negative vibes "inside" the team as well and he wanted to silence them as well.

After scoring a hundred, Dada said that he was asked to step down on the eve of the First test. He didn't tell the name of who suggested that but gave ample proof that it came from the coach Greg Chappel.

I don't want to know who did what and why this happened - we need to get our head together and think straight. World Cup is not far away and if we need to have any realistic chance making it anywhere close to the finals (let alone win it), we need to shrug off all these petty issues and concentrate on 1 thing that matters most - play well !